5 Reasons To Play South Park: The Stick Of Truth

Recently, I was rather ill; I made sure to use my time wisely and so, I cracked out my copy of South Park: Stick Of Truth whilst in bed. I played through the whole game twice (once for fun whilst the second served as a mop-up for the few remaining achievements!) in the time I was ill; but I could have played it again easily, if it weren’t for the fact my movement came back and thus the next gen consoles became playable again (different rooms you see). Here’s 5 reasons why I absolutely love playing South Park: The Stick Of Truth.

It’s so fun!

I can’t stress this part enough. Any fan of South Park, whether you’ve followed the show for only a few years or if you’ve stopped watching but loved it originally, you should play this game if you haven’t already. From the first moment you wake up in the quiet mountain town in Colorado, you’re destined to have fun; as you join the boys on what rapidly becomes as disastrous as the situations they always end up in in the episodes. One of the strongest points of this game is that both creators of the South Park franchise stayed totally involved throughout the whole process, from design to basic mechanics to the story itself – which by the way, is fantastic. I found some South Park episodes had become a bit hit & miss, but this game must have been taking up a lot of their creativity, as it just sizzles (succulent if you’re name is Thinkbad Monkey…). OK, it’s not the most challenging RPG you’ll ever play, but this isn’t the type of game you want to be too hard.

The story stays relatively funny

After playing it three times, I would still happily play it again at some point with another class – which says loads in my opinion about the repeatability of the game. Chasing achievements like stunning 3 enemies at once with a fart, something so ridiculous, kept me entertained for 5 minutes as I sat trying to think of the best place to do it (stupid I know), but it’s chasing the achievements and the goal of completing all the different side missions that kept me entertained to get 100%. Hunting down all the Christmas Critters to get their friend requests on the social media platform, or helping Mr Hankey’s kids, God it’s just so fun to do over and over.

Classes and minions gives variation

Of course, repeatability is always going to be helped when you can change between the different classes, (Fighter, Thief, Mage and Jew) with each of these being able to wear the same outfits yet obviously the different abilities attached to those items are helpful to different classes more than others; take fire damage for example, it’s more useful for a Mage who’s base attack is using firecrackers, compared to the Jew with his slingshot. The ability to change up which South Park character joins forces with you, whether it be Kyle or Cartman or even my favourite Butters (mostly because of Professor Chaos being so dang relatable), the different catch phrases makes the game seem fresh, just by changing up who accompanies you.

Easter Eggs Galore!

Not too unexpected I suppose, but does deserve a mention I feel. Obviously, a South Park game is going to be full of South Park content, but they’ve really made sure that all of the classic moments from the show’s history up to 2014, it’s release, were mentioned or visible in some shape or form – In fact, the only thing I really think they missed was the School bus that was present often in the early episodes before Miss Crabtree was murdered, yet I’m not sure how the school bus could have been a part of this RPG based in the South Park world – except for just being seen really.

It’s like being in your very own episode

This has to be the biggest reason for me. The first time I played Stick Of Truth and really got to sink my teeth into this great adventure in South Park, I was giggling along as if I was a personal member of the town, another heartbeat in South Park, and I felt like a huge part of the game. The amount of customisation is ridiculously good, be it adding freckles, or hair colour, or the make up, or choices in eyewear, it’s so detailed and I loved the great amount of detail in the different clothing options too, the Goth outfit, Druid Outfit (Butters’ bear costume from the Paris Hilton episode), the detail and design is amazingly deep, and it really helps to make you feel like you’re actually there.